Under-age Vaping

Paulette Hamilton Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friends on the Front Bench for choosing this important topic for debate.

I recognise that encouraging the use of e-cigarettes is a vital part of the Government’s strategy for a smokefree 2030. I am a member of the Health and Social Care Committee, and two weeks ago I listened to the expert panel and heard some of their disturbing evidence. It is worrying that the risks associated with vaping are still unclear, as long-term studies do not exist.

I was a nurse for 25 years. Believe me, there is no one who wants to support effective public health measures as passionately as I do, but I am concerned. It is illegal to sell vapes containing nicotine to anyone under the age of 18, but, in 2021, over 20% of children aged 11 to 15 had tried vaping. Clearly, something is not working. At the Health and Social Care Committee, I asked the panel about banning vape sticks, but was struck by the answer that banning them would drive them underground, which worried me.

One secondary school in my constituency told me:

“Vaping has massively increased with children—they are too easy to obtain and the negative consequences are not fully appreciated by the children. Vapes are also being used as a method of supplying harder drugs, which is a wider issue across our estate.”

Forty children and young people were admitted to hospital in England last year owing to vaping-related disorders. We have all seen reports about some of the terrible symptoms that they have experienced, from seizures and shortness of breath, to hypertension and high blood pressure. The Khan review, published last year, recommended that the Government do everything they possibly can to prevent children and young people from vaping.

If Conservative Members are really committed to doing everything they possibly can, they could start by fixing the mess that they have created in the NHS and attempting to make new records, rather than those they are currently achieving for the longest waiting list, the highest vacancies and the most disruptive delays. Doctors and nurses are working incredibly hard, but there are just not enough of them. Vital spaces in hospital beds across the country are being taken up by people who cannot access mental health or social care services and so cannot be discharged.

The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health warned that youth vaping is becoming an epidemic and that the number of children admitted to hospital as a result of vaping has almost quadrupled in two years. Our NHS cannot afford for the Government not to take this issue seriously.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall say this until I am blue in the face: public health is chronically underfunded and prevention is key. If we cannot stop children vaping once they have started, we need to make sure that they never start in the first place. The potential risks associated with vaping, especially for children living under a Conservative Government who are set on wrecking our NHS, are just too great. We need a Government who will prioritise prevention and support the NHS to take this issue seriously before the problem escalates any further.